Crucial MD 128MB not getting the right speeds

[Red_Avatar]

Two days ago, I received my Crucial MD 128MB in the mail. I used one of the best known guides online to get everything installed:
- I installed the drive on a Sata600 slot (the other drives I have are on Sata300)
- I used Windows recovery DVD to go to the recovery console and formatted the drive to an NTFS partition
- I then set BIOS to ATA and did a firmware update (the firmware update would not work in AHCI) to version 0009
- after the firmware update, I set it back to AHCI, disconnected all other HDDs and installed Windows 7 on my SSD drive
- after installation, I disabled indexing, hibernation, system protection, paging file, superfetch, etc.
- I installed the Intel chipset drivers
- I installed the Intel RST drivers
- I reconnected all the drives

I then did a benchmark and random reading speed is between 240MB/260MB but from what I read, these are ATA speeds. I used several benchmarking tools and they all showed the same results AND they showed it was indeed connected to Sata 600 AND AHCI is active. I'm completely lost what could be causing the lower speeds.

I also read that it's best to make the SSD the first hard drive but this is not possible - the 4 sata 300 slots are first in line, so the first sata 600 slot is already in 5th spot - but surely that can't cause such massive speed limitations?

Info:

Intel 2600K
Asus P8P67-M (the newer revision without the bug - had to get it replaced before)
8GB DDR3 Kingston

I did NOT install all the Windows 7 updates yet but from what I read, this is not needed to get the right speeds.

Can anyone help out?

 

[RetiredChief]

(1) Down load and install As SSD (if you have not already onso - you did not indicate which bench mark you used). Open the program and look in the upper left. It should indicate iaSTor for the driver. It should also show a "OK" for the Partition alignment.

(2) Which ver of intel RST did you install, should be the latest, Ver 10.6.

(3) On benchmarking an SSD - DO NOT do to offten. and Between passes you need to allow time for internal CG and for Trim to recover. That said, if you do run As SSD bench mark, your over all score should be 600+ (Could be 700). I'll check when I get home as I have two Curcial M4's installed in my SB notebook (1 boot, 1 for storage).

(4) the sata 6 slots on your MB are controlled By intel controller and not a marvel controller - correct??

Added: Don't forget the small file (4K) random read/writes speeds are much lower than the seq speads

 

[Red_Avatar]

Thanks for the help.

(1) It was one of the two benchmarks - the other was CrystalDiskMark which gave almost identical results. It says OK for both iaSTor and 1024 K.

(2) latest version, yes. But: when I look at the data from RST, it says my SATA transfer rate is only 3 Gb/s despite it being connected to a Sata 600 port. It also says it's not a system disk - yet it is. Very odd. I dunno how reliable its info is

(3) I only did the benchmarks 2-3 times and only after I had taken all the steps.

(4) Yes, by the Intel P67 chipset.

I'm going to try and stick the drive in the other sata 600 port - who knows. I'll do a benchmark after that and post it back here.

 

[Red_Avatar]

Okay, used a different cable, different port, and got: 561 as score.

 

[Red_Avatar]

Woo! Result!

It was something utterly ridiculous - I swapped around the wrong cable <.<. The right one was indeed plugged into a Sata 3 port while I had been swapping the Sata 6 one around.

 

[RetiredChief]

I'm leaving work in a few minuites. When I get home will check mine. But it does look like your Seq's are being limited to sata II speeds. Sata II does not effect the random speeds very much as they are normally less than sata II speeds any way.

I know you want advertized speed, but just for your info in real life you will not see a big diff as sequencials have limited inpact on a boot/program drive. Where they play a bigger role is when accessing LARGE files, such as game maps, video editing (dot vobs are normally 1 gig files), large spreadsheets and larg cad/cam drawing files.

 

[RetiredChief]

OK !!!
Much better. Just got home and check my laptop. Your last results are very simular to mine.

128 gig M4 Intel Chipset, Rst ver 10.6
Have two and both score almost Identical.
Seq..... 501.97 ...... 194.29
4K ...... 22.28 ....... 49.21
4k-64 . 296.64 ...... 155.71
Acess .. 0.089 ....... 0.202
Score....... 369 / 224
Overall ......... 774